[achiever]

USDCAD rallied sharply to reclaim 1.0900 and push up to 1.10 highs. A U.S. house has been a very large buyer due to month end related flows and Tuesday's decline in oil prices. Better news from Bank of Montreal helped the move up to highs, along with comments from Bank of Canada's deputy governor Lane, who said the strength of the country's currency remains an important risk to the economy and policy makes may need to take this into account in their decisions if it persists.

The Canadian retail sales for June released earlier this week were much better than expected, coming in at 1.0% m/m for both the headline and the xautos measures (market consensus was for 0.2% m/m and 0.4% m/m respectively).